System reboot and upgrade

I’ve got a new operating system. Me—not my computer. The old version served my family and I well, but it was way past time for an upgrade.

With all due respect to the male version of our species, in my limited-but-decades long experience, I believe a female generally has to reinvent herself during the course of a lifetime several times over. This, of course, is not a hard and fast rule, but a generalization I make from my own life. A committed couple makes career decisions based on the best opportunity or opportunities available to them at a particular point in their lives.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Nancy 1.0, my first operating system, spanned my childhood and early adulthood. I upgraded to 2.0 whenever I moved out on my own and began attending graduate school. Wow, I really enjoyed that operating system—it ran smoothly and afforded me the chance to spread my wings. While running it at its optimum, I had my first real career-related job and met the man I would eventually marry.

Nancy 2.0, a home-grown operating system, had to be upgraded to the newer sleeker version (3.0) when I changed my last name. It was my first real reinvention, one that would take me far away geographically from the state in which I was born and reared. This is where the before mentioned generalization became truth, at least for me. My husband’s career was very specialized, one of fisheries biology management. It was a given that we, as a couple would move for a job that he procured. I simply applied a few updates to the 3.0 OS and found my own career, a very fulfilling one at the time.

This operating system ran just fine, lasting for years without any major glitches or hardware issues. Whenever we decided to have children, there was a required system upgrade, one I refer to as operating system Nancy 3.0 SE (special edition, analogous to Windows 98 SE). My hardware, software, and memory allocations changed forever once that first baby was brought home from the hospital. Two children, born 18 months apart, caused a malfunction in my hard drive. Focus shifted from money and career advancement to not wanting to miss a single moment in my babies’ lives.

I was fortunate and blessed enough to be able to walk away from it all, becoming a stay-at-home mom with a 15-month-old and one on the way. Another OS upgrade was necessary for this change.

This, I thought, will be the last upgrade I need. Staying at home, rearing two boys, I lived the dream. Don’t get me wrong. Of all the jobs I had, this one was the toughest. It was also the most rewarding.

Plans for my husband’s retirement, moving out of state, and renovating his family’s century-old farmhouse were the goals we had on the horizon. Nancy 4.0 was rolling along just fine. No software glitches, plus the hardware was in optimal shape, considering its age.

When I became a widow, those plans had to change. I held out for almost six years before I finally gave in to an upgrade. Nancy 5.0 rolled out from production into the world on the first of this month.

I would have been perfectly content at 4.0, adding necessary updates as needed. More memory was added along the way, for convenience’s sake. But you can only run so long on old software.

Seeing the need to upgrade and having the courage to do it are two totally different animals. After a lot of prayer and shopping around, I’ve been reinvented again, taking on my first full-time job in 14 years. It’s a career that affords me to work from home. As an only parent, that’s a deal maker or breaker in our family.

It’s still too early to give a comprehensive review on this new operating system. There are a few minor glitches still to work through, including but not limited to two teenagers being at home, along with a puppy. While I am working. Get the picture?

I’m packing away many of my husband’s awards, art, and memorabilia which dominate our home office space. That’s been more difficult than I imagined or expected. Slowly but surely, however, the area is beginning to look like a career woman again lives here.

Just as in all OS upgrades, there’s a learning curve and adjustment period. Although the process is scary because of the unknown, it is also unimaginably rewarding. I was used to Nancy 4.0; it was safe and reliable. But 5.0 has endless possibilities, many awaiting my discovery. Here’s to the latest and best version of me.

Nancy Howell can be reached at njhowell415@gmail.com. She’s a native Kentuckian and adopted Texan, making her way as a solo parent to two teenage sons. She blogs at unimaginedjourney.com.